We can Live Like Jack and Sally If We Want
by homemadedonuts
Summary: "This is the way the world ends; This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper." T.S. Elliot Herein lies the story of Jack, who lived and lost. In a world turned to madness and chaos, Jack must overcome all of the terrors of this nightmarish new reality and survive. Can he do it? Will he do it?
1. Chapter 1

_This story is actually an original. I have linked it to TWD because it fits into a similar genre of horror, however the characters and parts of the story are completely my own. I will make no references to anything Kirkman or AMC have published or presented and flow with my own events, characters and timelines. Enjoy._

Part one – Jack

I like to say that I am a likeable person as far as society goes. I've never had too hard a time making friends, just have a hard time making lasting friendships. I'm not all that trusting and so most of the time everyone else is talking, I'm mentally calling their bullshit. I mean, how many times in a conversation do you just think to yourself; "Well that's just a giant crock of shit?" Just look at this yahoo, all this talking about affordable healthcare and a bunch of other random bullshit. Who cares?

I'm more concerned with what the reporter is saying on the TV behind him than what he is saying anyway, but I can't make it out. The jukebox is blaring full blast, some sort of song about achy breaky hearts and the reporting is going on about something important but I can't hear it. Why do bars have televisions anyway? It isn't like they ever turn the music down long enough for you to hear what the fuck the people on it are saying. All I get is what is in the report topic behind her, something about a new strain of flu, something that is killing people. There's all the obligatory hand washing warnings, overcrowded hospitals, people wearing masks, and ambulance driver shots that follow these sort of public health warnings. Remember the H1N1? Turned out to be a glorified version of the flu that just got all of our panties in a wad, and was a giant waste of time for everyone except the company that makes that flu medicine. Good old USA, getting everyone all fired up for nothing.

"You know what I am sayin'?" The old guy asks as he smacks me on the arm, and I flinch into my beer. Why is it when people get drunk they think the person before them suddenly has become a punching bag? "Yeah I hear you. Drink your beer wouldya?" I say, tossing another few bucks on the bartop to pay for another round. There are only a handful of us in the bar, and Reg is always here. I think he lives here, or in the dumpster out back because even if you decided to come in at ten in the morning you'll find Reg sitting at the bar, drinking. I swear he doesn't even piss, he's too busy annoying you into buying him another round and then filling your head with all this political mumbo jumbo. At least he isn't going on about Jimmy Carter again.

I watch Reg turn to his beer and drain the mug because he knows I've just bought him another, and he has time to savor that before he's out and had to annoy someone else into getting him hammered. I sigh into my own beer, and look around. I've been coming to this place every Friday and Saturday for the last fifteen years and it doesn't look like it's changed much. Maybe that's why I like it? It's dark, and it's mostly a ghost town during the day. It's just like any bar, in the Northeast. Dark, dreary, with hot aging bartenders and lots of crevices for when it's full on a weekend. Someone got the bright idea of stapling bras on the ceiling from the looser female patrons. This would alright in my book, except most of the clientele that come into this place are almost fifty and half the size of a house. Some of these pieces of lingerie could probably haul some heavy duty artillery shells. Talk about tits the size of cannonballs, with the girth to cover it.

"Hey Jack?!" I hear and my attention is pulled further down the bar. Co-workers, I let them drag me here after work for two lousy beers every week, and then wonder why I even agreed to come. I hate these assholes. "Yeah what?," I call out, setting my warming beer on the bar to look over at them. This jackass is talking too loudly about random shit I just don't want to hear about. It's hard to pay attention to them when they look ridiculous as they do. Especially this guy. His names Jerry, and he has probably the world's hottest wife but he's a walking HR issue. If there's a girl at work with a mediocre butt, and a chest on her, he makes it painfully obvious that he's looking. "You know, Jeannie? Tell him! Tell him how big they are man, I mean wow. I'd like to motorboat those!" He does with gesture at his chest, like he's weighing melons with his hands and simulating a pair of big boobs. Sometimes I'd just like to knock him square in the jaw.

"Yeah, them and any other pair of tits you can find." I say, and am treated to hoots and guffaws of amusement. Jerry laughs too, and simply says. "I'm a tit man, what can I say? Right?! Right?!" Don't get me wrong, I like tits too but Jesus. I swear if you sit too close to this guy, you gotta go home to wash of the layer of slime. I've always been a committal sort of guy, as in if you make one you honor it. And this guy, who can go out and get a great woman and then sleaze around on her while I am still fishing for the right one? Well he's an ass. I just grin and act like I'm part of the crowd but I'm ready to go. It's almost five, and I'm tired, and the last thing I want to be doing in sitting in this depressing ass bar listening to Slime ball Jerry talk about new titties and what he wants to do with them. I've had enough.

"You leavin' handsome?," Asks Jess, the bartender as I grab up my coat to go. Reg seems to be sleeping in his beer, letting out a low hacking cough every so often. This is what you sound like when you smoke three packs a day for twenty years. I smile at Jess, I've known her for a while and I used to have a crush on her. Anymore, I think she just likes the attention of being flirted with and I'll oblige. I'm a nice guy after all. "Yeah, thinking about going to go grab a bite." I tell her, making it obvious to roll my eyes down in the direction of Jerry and the Three Stooges. "Be safe then sugar!" She says, as she pats me on the back. I slip my jacket on, because it's the height of October and even I get cold sometimes, and push open the door. The last thing I hear is the coughing of Reg as the bar's door swings closed, and I step out into the cool night air.

The bar faces a cornfield, like so many other places around here, because you can't live in any small town in Illinois without seeing cornfields. Sometimes when you're driving that's all you see, wall to wall corn. It's depressing, but its home. I've called this place home since I was born, and even though I have to drive almost an hour to get back and forth to work I wouldn't change it. It's quiet, rural, and the crime factor is pretty non-existent. Sometimes I don't lock my door when I go to bed, but only when I'm really feeling daring. I think the most crime this place has seen is when the teenager's steal change out of people's change compartment of their cars to buy themselves cigarette's.

Because it's so quiet here, I always park at home and then walk the twelve blocks to the Pete's, the bar I frequent. I trudge tiredly down Main Street in the direction of my house, passing nothing but old, tall houses as I do. People are arriving home from work, or the Market, and kids are picking up their toys from the yard. At five in October, the night becomes this sort of tawny gold color with purple streaks throughout, signaling that in about a half an hour it will be at least fifteen degrees cooler, and pitch dark. As I walk, I hear lots of coughing. It's the height of flu season, sure, but this seems excessive. I think only momentarily to the news report that I didn't get to hear. It's just the flu, no big deal. I can't help but have this gnawing feeling in my gut, as I pass, listening to the sound of phlegm being coughed up as I walk.

I pass a house that is three numbers down from my own, and I hear a coughing so deep that it sort of alarms me. Melissa, my neighbor is scarlet in the face as she gathers a few things from her minivan, and I almost stop to see if she needs help. She shuts the door before I have a chance, wheezing, and turns towards me. There's a weak wave given, before she's turned and is trudging toward the house slowly, hacking all the way.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up, hearing her go inside, and I have no idea why. I try to put it out of my mind as I walk slowly the remaining distance to my own house and up the steps. By the time I get the door open, and pick up the mail on the floor I forget. I neglect to turn on the television for the rest of the night as I settle into what I do best. I make dinner for myself, wash up, and I'm in bed before I know it. The sounds of coughing, they are the last thing on my mind as I drift off to sleep early.

It's the last good night's sleep I'll have for the next three months, because as I sleep the world outside me undergoes the most chaotic of metamorphoses, and the only warning I get is the muted News Report in a too loud bar. I like to think that if I had just been able to listen to that twenty minute blurb on the news about a flu, that maybe I would have been prepared. But the sad reality is when the world end's, no amount of preparation helps.


	2. Chapter 2

2

I hate oversleeping. It's not so much the fact that I am getting whatever needed rest, it's the panic you get afterward. Nothing starts the day out more horribly than waking up, feeling rested and peaceful and then suddenly getting that 'Oh, Fuck!' feeling.

I roll over in my bed and stretch, the sun hitting my face and giving me a warm feeling. All I can think as my brain slowly clears from the fog of sleep, is that I feel great. Great night's sleep, I can get up and get a nice bowl of cereal before I go to work…. Work?! I shoot out of bed like a bullet, and look at the alarm. It's not blinking, like it does when the goddamned power goes out in the middle of the night, no the whole thing is completely black. Black, meaning that I don't have any damned power and every single thing that I have in the refrigerator's going to go bad if I don't get power in at least eight hours. But what's more? I'm late to work. From the look of the sun, pretty damned late too.

I swipe my cell phone off the bedside table and groan, digging one palm into my eye to scrub the remnants of sleep from it and stare at my phone. The time says ten fifty three, which is almost five hours slept in, but that really isn't the part that is getting to me. What is really problematic is the fact that my bars have this little red X on them and it says no service. It's going to be a really shitty day, not only am I five hours late for work but I forgot to pay my fucking cell phone bill.

"Fucking hell…" I groan to myself and get up. Five hours late, there's no reason to risk driving an hour to get to work, I should just try the landline and call them so they don't think I've died. I'm not going to lie to you, I'm not the most graceful when I get up in the morning and so I walk to the bathroom in nothing but my boxer shorts. There is something nagging at the back of my skull, this foreboding feeling that something is so very wrong and I can't shake it. Yawning I am thinking it's got to be related to being late and just having the worst luck there ever was. It's like getting a trifecta of shitty. No electricity, no cell phone, and I am later than I could ever be to work.

But the more I think about it, the more it nags at me. And that's when I remember that I have paid my phone bill, I remembered bitching at Reg about it just about a week prior. "Must be down." I say, as I finish in the bathroom and then pull on some clothes. Trudging down the hall in my socks, the whole funk that seems to have swallowed my whole day is centered around my stupid cell phone. I slip the useless thing back into my pocket as I enter the kitchen and walk to the wall phone.

When I pick it up, I hear an announcement on it no matter what I dial. I first try the absent hotline and get it, but then I try just about anything. "The fuck is wrong with the phones?" I ask myself aloud, as I finally dial 9-1-1 just to see if anything even happens. Nothing does, the lady on the line keeps going on about how I should dial a 1 before I try again. Something is really wrong then, isn't it? The power is out, my cell phone is down, and now this bitch on the landline wants me to dial a one to every number I could try. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that no matter how many goddamned ones you put before the number it isn't going to happen. I can't help but wonder to myself if some drunk took out the power transformer, is it possible they took out the cell towers and the telephones too? Highly unlikely.

The house seems unusually quiet to me. There's no power, and I don't have any clocks in the house but for some reason I can hear this ticking sound like the seconds are passing me by. Everything is unusually quiet and I am unnerved by the silence. There are things that I can do while the power is out though, and sitting around here in creepy silence isn't something that's high on my to-do list. So I grab my keys, and my jacket and I'm heading for the door when the power flickers. Everything seems to come on again, though something definitely isn't right because the lights are doing this flickering that I am sure would drive someone stark crazy. "Don't threaten me with a good time." I say to no one, before I am headed again for the door. There's that gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach again as I grip the door knob and ready myself for the outside. "Pussy." I say to myself, thinking I am just being sensitive about missing work and pull open the door.

Everything is wrong. I step out onto the porch and just looking at my street sends shivers down my spine. Everything is wrong. There's no sounds except for silence, which is weird even for this one stop sign town. Someone's always driving around somewhere but I hear no cars. I feel dread on the back of my neck, every hair on my arm is standing on end. I do not even both to turn around and lock the door because I'm wondering just where in the hell everyone is. Is this one of those creepy assed dreams where you are the only person left alive? The sound of my footsteps on the porch makes me realize I am walking toward the street, and I begin to look around. There are some signs of life. The neighbor two doors down for some reason left his motorcycle laying on its side on the drive way. The family that lives across the way has their door wide open, and to my left I can hear the dinging of keys left in the ignition. I move for that sound, quickly moving down the steps to the pavement and walking in the direction of that house. I see Melissa's minivan with its door wide open and when I walk around to the side I see my neighbor unconscious in the drivers seat.

She looks like hell, but I can hear her breathing so I know she's alive. The kids are strapped into their booster seats also unconscious in the back. "What the hell, Mel! Mel?" I say loudly, shaking the woman who seems to be burning with fire. She's so hot to the touch I recoil. Mel makes this sickly sound as she's roused some, her eyes fluttering. She flails weakly and grips the steering wheel, making noises like she's trying to form words but none of it is cohesive and intelligible. "Aw shit…." She's sick, and from the looks of it the kids were too. I don't bother with them, she needs help. Is this part of that flu? And I wonder where her husband is, his car is still in the driveway too. "I don't know what to do, Mel. I don't know what to do?!" I can't help but say, watching the poor woman struggle for air. Her eyes are sunken in with giant purple bags under them. I can see her neck is swollen, and there's crust on her lips. Her head rolls in my direction and she is able to muster one word, "h..el..p," before I watch her slump against the wheel.

This is a woman I've known for at least ten years so as any good human being would do I'm rushing forward, trying to take off her seat belt when I hear a sudden click from behind me. It's the sort of click that makes every hair stand up and your bladder threaten to empty itself. When I turn around all I see is one cold black eye staring at me. When you're staring down the barrel of a .45 you have little regard for anything else except not shitting your pants. Maybe shouldn't have gotten out of bed today….


End file.
